Neha Sami studies urban and regional development and governance in post-liberalisation India. Her research focuses on the governance arrangements of mega-projects, regional planning, and on environmental governance questions in Indian cities, particularly around issues of climate change adaptation. Her earlier work focused on the way local urban stakeholders, both within and outside government use their personal social and political networks to shape and facilitate large developmental projects and governance initiatives that are rapidly emerging in contemporary Indian cities. She is currently studying industrial corridor development projects between Indian cities like the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor, focusing particularly on governance issues. She is also interested in regional approaches to land use planning. Other ongoing research focuses on questions of environmental governance at sub-national scales, focusing especially on planning for climate change at the city and regional scales. Her writing on some of these issues has been published in the Economic and Political Weekly, the International Journal for Urban and Regional Research (IJURR), and Land Use Policy, as well as through contributions to several edited volumes.

Neha is currently faculty at the Indian Institute for Human Settlements in Bangalore, India where she teaches on questions of urban and regional governance and sustainability, and research methods and ethics. She also anchors the Research Programme at IIHS. Neha is also a member of the Editorial Collective of Urbanisation (published by SAGE).

She holds a Ph.D. in Urban Planning from the University of Michigan, a master’s degree in Environmental Management from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and a bachelor’s degree in Economics from the University of Mumbai. Prior to beginning graduate school at the University of Michigan, Sami worked with the Boston Redevelopment Authority as an analyst with the Economic Development Division, as well as with the Environment and Sustainable Development Division of the UN-ESCAP (Bangkok).

Sami, N. (2014). Power to the People? A study of Bangalore’s Urban Task Forces. In Shatkin, G. (Ed.), Contesting the Indian City: Global Visions and the Politics of the Local. West Sussex, UK: Wiley Blackwell.

Anand, S., & Sami, N. (2016, July). Apples and Oranges: Inter-regional Comparisons within India. Paper presented at the RC21 International Conference on the transgressive city: comparative perspectives on governance and the possibilities of everyday life in the emerging global city. Mexico: El Colegio De México.

Who Develops: The Role of Urban Coalitions in India’, Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning Annual Meeting, Minneapolis, October 7-10, 2010.

‘Personal Connections: Urban coalitions in Bangalore’, ‘Contesting The Indian City: State, Space, And Citizenship In The Global Era’, Interdisciplinary Workshop on the Indian city, Centre for Studies in the Social Sciences, Kolkata, India, sponsored by the Center for South Asian Studies, University of Michigan & the Trehan India Initiative, March 5-6, 2010

‘Local Labor for Global Exhibition – How the Rise of Construction in Preparation for the 2010 World Exposition Has Affected the Rural-Urban Migrant Population of Shanghai’ (Joint work with Charles Garcia and Alexander Jacobsen). Outstanding Paper Award, Urban Development and Planning in China: China Planning Network (CPN) 3rd Annual Conference, Beijing, China, June 14-16, 2006.

INDIAN INSTITUTE FOR HUMAN SETTLEMENTS

The Indian Institute for Human Settlements (IIHS) is a national education institution committed to the equitable, sustainable and efficient transformation of Indian settlements.